Posted on 12/08/2010 5:44:40 AM PST by maggief
The website of MasterCard, the international credit card, has been hacked and partially paralysed by hackers, in apparent revenge for the payment network's decision to cease taking donations to WikiLeaks.
A group of online activists calling themselves Anonymous appear to have orchestrated a DDOS ("distributed denial of service") attack on the site, bringing its service at www.mastercard.com to a halt for many users.
"Operation: Payback" is the latest salvo in the increasingly febrile technological war over WikiLeaks. MasterCard announced on Monday that it would no longer process donations to the whistleblowing site, claiming it was engaged in illegal activity.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2010/dec/08/wikileaks-us-embassy-cables-live-updates
12.46pm: Operation Payback has also targeted PayPal, and Twitter may be next after speculation that it is preventing the term #wikileaks showing on its trending topics.
A online poster put out by the campaign says: “Twitter you’re next for censoring #Wikileaks discussion. The major shitstorm has begun.”
Big deal. Anyone can make that claim and the reason for the hack.
The longer this goes on, the quicker they’ll be able to zero in on the C&C centers of their botnets and take them down, and we’ll be rid of another source of spam. Find the bot herders and prosecute them to the fullest extent. No mercy, no quarter.
It almost feels like a new kind of war — a war in which governments are merely bystanders.
This is getting very interesting. Thanks for posting.
You’re exactly right, this is indeed a new kind of warfare, and while it is not readily apparent, there are a lot of very skilled professionals who work very hard to go after people like these who are in effect conducting a cyber attack on companies like MC.
FWIW, I don’t think the US admin’s a bystander. I think it’s a co-conspirator.
if obama’s people (who stood around when wiki started leaking last summer) are not active or passive co conspirators in this massive treason - then they are incredibly inept or totally clueless, aren’t they?
No comforting choices
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2010/dec/08/wikileaks-us-embassy-cables-live-updatesMasterCard said it was experiencing “heavy traffic” but did not elaborate.
1.50pm: MasterCard is staying tight-lipped about the campaign to hack its website, according to AP.
MasterCard said it was experiencing “heavy traffic” but did not elaborate.
In the same piece AP rounds-up the other skirmishes in the WikiLeaks cyber battle:
The online vengeance campaign appeared to be taking the form of denial of service attacks in which computers across the Internet are harnessed — sometimes surreptitiously — to jam target sites with mountains of requests for data, knocking them out of commission.
FWIW, I find ineptitude far more conforting than the alternative. I also find it far less plausible.
"That which does not kill me, makes me stronger."
I love it when the little people
fight back.
Sounds like terorism against commerce to me.
These hackers need a vacation in Gitmo.
If anyone hacks and attributes it to Anonymous then the action can be said to have been commited by Anonymous. There is no central leadership, but there are a few known focal points. We’d know if Anonymous wants to disavow the action, and they haven’t.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2638748/posts?page=4#4
Ping to #4 and #7 and #9
#7 especially relates to this thread.
I am not familar with this poster but have no reason to doubt at this time.
Exactly...round them up, prosecute them, and send them off to a prison with no internet service where iPhones are not allowed. Kids have this mistaken idea that anything goes on the internet and any kind of scam or crime is OK as long as they do it online. There is so much blatant fraud and misrepresentation on the internet, and then there are the virus writers and hackers. We have to send a message that criminal activity is not OK just because it’s done on the internet.
Cyberterrorism. Governments are permitted to snuff out cyberterrorists.
Anarchist punks think that laws do not matter yet they still want womb to the tomb government healthcare, living allowance, grocery assistance.
Guards sell contraband like phones to prisoners. Charles Manson had one in his cell.
They need a dirt nap.
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